Choice of Words
By Valerie Nieman
My father and I
each became single
in the same year.
He is bereft,
robbed of his happiness,
a widower, or widowman.
His life has come undone,
and he is adrift
among the wreckage.
The only words worthy
of his loss are Anglo-Saxon
uncensored howls.
*
But I am separated
on the way to divorce,
terms for a civilized
coming apart.
Separated like an egg,
occasionally messy
but with some care
the yolk rests aloft,
while the white goes
cool and sliding into the bowl.
*
In plain words,
it's all butchery,
whatever the parting:
disjointed, sundered, severed.
*
A separation is also,
however, embarkation.
We stand at the rail,
each waving a white handkerchief
at the sinking shore.
Source: https://www.press53.com/valerie-nieman
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